Page 15 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

‘Feel things? Like what? Touching things, you mean? No.’

‘No, I meant, do you have emotions? Do you get sad? Happy? Anything?’

‘Yes, Heather, I do. It alleviates some of the boredom of being dead, but the unfortunate thing is that I can’t do a lot about the feelings I have. Like I can’t go and see Ruth.’

‘If you could, would she see you?’

‘Yes, and that brings me on to the second message.’

‘Okay. Go ahead.’ I listened with anticipation.

‘You’re going to enter a new stage of life. There’s a lot for you to learn. Ruth can mentor you—if she recovers enough to do it.’

‘You mean menopause. Yeah, I’m having that full on since my operation. Headaches, hot flashes, irritability—’

‘Yes, you’ll get all that, Heather. But that isn’t what I meant.’

‘What am I going to learn, Mum?’ I had no idea what she was talking about, unless it was about me learning to be single.

Her ghostly mother’s lips tightened. ‘I don’t have time to tell you everything, even if I knew, which I don’t. You see, I never developed the special abilities that run in our family, and so I never talked about them with you. I assumed you wouldn’t inherit them from your grandmother, but you have.’ She shrugged. ‘I was unlucky, I guess. They skipped me.’

‘You’re not making sense, Mum.’

The ghostly image of my mother dimmed, and her voice quietened. ‘I would like to escape the mortal world and move on if I can. I think I can do that when I know you are on your true path.’

Then she was gone.

I paced back and forth in the dining room, wearing myself out. Whenever I passed through the spot where my mother’s ghost had been, a shiver ran through me. I smiled. I hadn’t been dreaming and my mind hadn’t gone on a wild insane trip through la-la land. My mother’s ghost really had been there, talking to me. She’d visited several times.

I made a strong coffee and threw myself down on an armchair in the living room, tired. I would need weeks more to recover from the operation—perhaps months. The leather sofa opposite stood in front of me, and I regarded it with distaste now, though I’d always liked it. Since he lost his job, I would find Terry lying on it, claiming he’s spent the day crippled by depression, whenever I got home from work. Instead, he’d been happily romping with his redundant colleague. No wonder he claimed to feel tired. She’d worn him out.

I didn’t want that sofa any more. And the bed was another thing that had to go. I’d slept in it last night because I’d been so exhausted, but the idea that Terry and his mistress had been banging each other on it made me sick to the stomach.

He could take both of those items of furniture.

A rush of stress rose through me. If I was going to go through with it, where would I go? On my meagre teacher’s salary, I wouldn’t get a mortgage on another decent-sized house. I’d have to downsize to a granny flat. Or share with other dispossessed women.

No, that wouldn’t do. I needed my own space, at least until all my swirling emotions and stresses had died down.

There was so much to arrange, and I didn’t have the slightest clue as to how to start doing it.

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